


Rose on the Gray

by levanterfelix



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levanterfelix/pseuds/levanterfelix
Summary: Felix is three streets away from his school, an ache slowly growing across his stomach and side, when the flowers crack open and bloom inside of his rib cage.It's a little Rainflower, sitting in his hand after he finally curled over and vomited onto the side of the street, coughing so hard he nearly blacked out.I love you back. I must atone for my sins. I will never forget you.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Kunpimook Bhuwakul | BamBam, Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Lee Felix/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 15
Kudos: 100





	Rose on the Gray

**Author's Note:**

> edit 04/10/20: all traces of woojin have been removed and replaced with bambam!!!

Felix is sixteen when he meets Chan and falls ridiculously in love with him.

Maybe it's naive, to convince yourself that you're in love when you’re just a teenager, at that age it’s just a crush. It's nothing but puppy love and Felix setting his hopes too high, only to get his heart crushed. He knows the drill.

Felix is eighteen when he starts coughing up flowers. That’s when he  _ knows _ he’s in love with Chan.

Everything about the older man is perfect. Chan cares for Felix and his other friends like they’re precious metals, he's selfless,  _ always _ having time to listen to your issues.

He's perfect, so much so that even his faults are.

It’s almost a shame that Chan doesn’t love Felix back.

  
  
  


When Felix was younger, he always wondered how such delicate and beautiful plants could cause somebody so much pain. He knew why roses would, of course. They were one of the most common flowers for people suffering to vomit up, their whole meaning was love and they had the sharpest thorns, and that's what Hanahaki  _ thrived _ off of.

Hanahaki; the flower vomiting disease. 

It begins its process when somebody experiences unrequited love, plaguing the lungs with flowers. It's awfully painful, slow, and you either die from it or forget the one you love to get the flowers removed.

Oh, what a shame, that Chan does not love Felix back, and that Felix cannot bear to forget him.

For Felix, It begins with a white clover, which is an ugly flower in his opinion. They’re still small and delicate yet wrecking havoc just like any other flower, though. It breaks open, just slightly, at the sight of Lee Minho pressing a kiss against Chan's lips. Felix doesn’t even notice, he’s too busy running the entire distance from his school to his home, running up to his bedroom to land in his bed with tears in his eyes.

It feels awfully like his heart cracking open.  _ Think of me _ , the website definition echoes back.

  
  
  


Geraniums, that's the name of the second flower. Felix stops coughing up white clovers two months into Minho and Chan’s relationship, when they break up with each other and Chan gets ready to leave for University. He guesses that he doesn’t need Chan to think of him instead of Minho, considering they've broken up.

“Always find me, yeah? You're my best friend, Lix.”

Felix thinks it's funny when he has to excuse himself later on to run to the bathroom, hunching over the toilet to cough up another one of the pesky flowers. 

A pretty pink Geranium floats in the toilet water, and he almost gags while carefully picking it out of the disgusting toilet bowl, drying it off and stuffing it into his pocket. Later he learns, after searching the internet for anything that looked similar, that in flower language  _ Geranium  _ means  _ true friendship _ .

Felix wishes to not love Chan.

  
  
  


“Hey Lixie, how’s your last year of school going?” Chan smiles as soon as he sees him, shifting around to get comfortable while talking on the phone.

Felix just tries to not look like he's been kept up multiple nights from coughing fits. “Hey hyung, it's doing good! Is Uni killing you yet?”

“It's killing me but not in the way you think…” He trails off with a laugh, cheeks reddening. “I got a boyfriend…” More embarrassed laughing.

“Oh.” Felix feels his world stop. The flowers are already painful enough, and he doesn't know how quick the flowers could kill him just from this. He desperately wishes he was that person to Chan as his smile falls.

“Yeah!” Chans always been a bit oblivious to Felix’s love. “What about you?”

_ I’m in love with you and it's causing me to vomit and cough up flowers aggressively, but apart from that I’m great! _

“Actually…” He can't let Chan know. “I may have gotten a boyfriend myself…”

Chan gapes at him for that, and Felix just scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed. Chan can’t help but praise him for the rest of the night.

Amaryllis, that's what he finds in a puddle of his own vomit later, they symbolise pride. Felix just sighs as he closes his laptop.

  
  
  


Sometimes, Felix thinks that Chan knows. He feels bad every time that thought pops up, because Chan would never let Felix suffer like this if he knew.

Maybe that's worse, though. Knowing that Chan would lie about loving him, just to try and ease the pain, and that's what Felix is scared of most. It’s why he begs Lee Minho not to tell a soul when he runs after him to the bathroom and rubs his back as his body racks with coughs, flowers falling into the toilet bowl.

It's been two days since Chan first told him about his new boyfriend, and the flowers have never been this debilitating; maybe it's punishment for lying to the man he loves, or maybe the world just hates him.

His name is Bambam, and from what Chan has told him, he's just as perfect as Chan.

He hates himself for hating Bambam, and at that, he begins to cough up Roses. 

Their thorns are sharp, and Felix knows right then that he’s dying.

  
  
  


Minho and Felix become close after that, and between Minho helping the younger study and the both of them cleaning up Rose petals, Minho begs him to get surgery to remove them.

“Hyung, how many times do I have to tell you no?” He sighs out, careful to not touch thorns as he stuffs flower’s into a black trash bag.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you're going to die, Lix? You’re getting worse and worse.”

Minho looks like he's going to cry, and maybe it's selfish of Felix, but he just can't lose Chan. “I don't want my best friend to die.”

  
  
  


Felix is three streets away from his school, an ache slowly growing across his stomach and side, when the flowers crack open and bloom inside of his rib cage.

He can't help but laugh. Life is so violent, isn't it?

His side is aching so bad that it feels like his ribs are melting off, but Felix just stares at the ground and continues to laugh. They turn into violent coughs so fast that it has him gagging to push the flowers out of his clogged throat.

It's a little Rainflower, sitting in his hand after he finally curled over and vomited onto the side of the street, coughing so hard he nearly blacked out. It’s white petals are covered in a dark red, diluting with every drop of rain that hits him and those damn flowers.

( _ Many sites list the meaning of Rainflower as: I love you back. I must atone for my sins. I will never forget you. _ )

He thinks he hears footsteps, probably Minho, maybe Chan if God isn’t on his side; considering he really doesn’t want to see him right now.

“Oh my god, are you okay?!”

  
  
  
  


It starts with Chan telling him that Bambam are coming to visit him and Chan's family, or maybe that's exactly when it ends. He’s barely able to cover the mass amounts of Roses that cover his floor from his mother, his scratched throat begging for rest as he tells her to not come in day after day.

Now Chan’s visiting -  _ with Bambam _ \- and he can't do anything but begin the job of picking them, careful to not cut his finger.

Felix is counting down the days to seeing them, but maybe he’s counting down to something more.

  
  
  


It's strangely nice when Chan and Bambam finally arrive. It's painful of course, and a little awkward for Chan to hang out with his current boyfriend and ex, but other than that, it’s nice.

They visit the school they spent so much time at, Chan getting ridiculously excited and dragging Bambam around, even bold enough to tell him about where he had his first kiss with Minho.

He’s always been like that. Felix just pretends like he didn't watch it happen.

Chan acts like a child again while showing Bambam around, laughing too loud to be appropriate while swinging their conjoined hands together, and Felix tries to stop the flowers from coming up as he begins to cough. It catches Minho's attention from beside him, and he immediately goes to rub his back.

“Lix? You okay?” Minho mumbles, and the couple pauses in front of them; looking from each other to Felix with worry.

“Yeah…” He presses a hand against his throat and bends over, willing the flowers back down his throat.

Chan’s eyebrows furrow. “Felix? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Channie—”

Nothing, except flowers spewing from his mouth, it seems. Delicate white petals of a dozen Rainflowers fall down to the floor at their feet, covering the floor as Felix desperately slaps his hands over in his mouth in an effort to stop more.

Chan and Bambam just stare at him in horror as Minho rubs his back awkwardly, trying to calm him down. It's horrifying. Standing there with the reason he has Hanahaki and that reasons boyfriend, his closest friend watching as he slowly but surely dies.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?!” Chan explodes, startling everybody in the hallway before taking a step towards Felix. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’re fucking dying?” He says, calmer now. He’s hurt, Felix can tell.

“I—”

“It's because  _ you're _ the one killing him!” Minho steps forward, accusing him with glare.

Felix looks up at Minho, looks back over to Chan, and turns on his tail.

He runs.

  
  
  


Felix is three streets away from his school and is passed out on the side of the street, Rainflowers surrounding him, when somebody finally finds him. They call an ambulance immediately, noticing the signs of fatalities Hanahaki, and he's taken to the hospital immediately.

When he wakes up, it's to see Chan's face right in front of him, only to feel another set of lips against his.

“Felix, please. I love you.” Felix thinks he sees Bambam turn and leaves the room, and then he begins to cough.

Felix coughs and coughs, and flowers fall out of his mouth and onto the sheets below him. There's blood everywhere, and his throat is scratched raw and clogged with the disgusting plants.

“You lied to him!” Minho roars, and Chan is suddenly replaced with Minho in front of him, holding his head and crushing the flowers as he sits on his hospital bed. “Lixie please don't do this to yourself, don't kill yourself over him!”

“ _ Please, I love you! _ ”

  
  
  


Hanahaki; the flower vomiting disease. The only way to cure it - if the other person doesn’t love you back - is to remove the flowers via surgery. It causes memory loss of the person you're in love with.

Felix is nineteen when Lee Minho loves him back, and the flowers that have been watered in his lungs by Chan finally clear.

Minho loves him back, Chan must atone for his sins, and Felix will never forget him, his first love.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, please let me know if you need further explanation!
> 
> edit: 11/05/20 changed my twitter link because i changed my username!!
> 
> nsfw twt: pissunq


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